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What Happens When You Set Boundaries in a Relationship

May 4, 2009 in Marriage-Family with 0 Comments

I’ve been talking briefly this last week about boundaries, especially since it is such a popular topic not only among those who go see a therapist, but it is popularized in self-help books, magazines, talk shows and about everywhere you look.

Unfortunately, boundaries may be talked a lot about, but they are easier to talk about than to develop and to live within. In terms of setting boundaries two fears often arise when we think about them in terms of our relationships:

What if I set a boundary? It’s risky. What if the person doesn’t like what I have to say? Or worse, doesn’t want to be my friend, or stay in a relationship.
What if I don’t set a boundary? That’s risky too. I might remain in the same situation, with the same dynamic replaying in the relationship.

I love what Henry Cloud and John Townsend say in their great book Boundaries:

We are built for relationship. Attachment is the foundation of the soul’s existence. When this foundation is cracked or faulty, boundaries become impossible to develop. Why? Because when we lack relationship, we have nowhere to go in a conflict. When we are not secure that we are loved, we are forced to choose between two bad options:

We set limits and risk losing a relationship.

We don’t set limits and remain a prisoner to the wishes of another. (pp. 64)

What is your biggest worry/fear/anxiety in setting a boundary in a relationship?

Differentiation as Boundaries

April 29, 2009 in Marriage-Family with 1 Comment

Well known psychologist David Schnarch has a wonderful book called the Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships.

When Schnarch speaks about boundaries he speaks about differentiation.

What is differentiation? In short, according to Schnarch:

Differentiation is a natural process in committed relationships that involves developing more of a self while growing closer to your partner. Men often sacrifice their relationship to hold onto their sense of self. Women often sacrifice their sense of self to stabilize their relationship. Differentiation is about having it both ways: having a stronger sense of self and a stronger relationship. (An Interview with Dr. David Schnarch)

Schnarch will often say that differentiation is knowing where one begins, and one ends. Or the balance between one’s desire for belonging/relationship, and the desire for freedom/independence.

I like how he says it in the Passionate Marriage,

People screaming, ‘I got to be me!’ ‘Don’t fence me in!’ and ‘I need space!’ are not highly differentiated. Just the opposite. They are fearful of ‘disappearing’ in a relationship and do thing to avoid their partner’s emotional engulfment. Some create distance; others keep their relationship in constant upheaval. Declaring your boundaries is an important early step in the differentiation process, but it’s done in the context of staying in relationship (that is, close proximity and restricted space). This is quite different from poorly differentiated people who attempt to always ‘keep the door open’ and who bolt as increasing importance of the relationship makes them feel like they’re being locked up. The process of holding onto your sense of self in an intense emotional relationship is what develops differentiation (Passionate Marriage, pp. 67).

Is the concept of differentation new to you?

Do you find yourself struggling between belonging and independence in your relationships?

Speaking of Boundaries…

April 24, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media with 0 Comments

[image by Simon Doggett]

I thought this was an interesting piece out of USA Today, especially when I’m beginning a series of blog posts on the issue of boundaries in a variety of contexts. Read The Popularity of Twitter has Some Relationships in a Twist, and tell me what you think.

Here is a choice quote from the article to get you started:

For some highly connected people, especially young adults who have grown up with cellphones, their superficial online connections increasingly are their only connections.

“We reply to someone we don’t know on Facebook, and we won’t even look at the cashier at the grocery because we’re too busy typing text messages on our phones,” Gordhamer says. “Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen poet, says the most valuable gift you can give someone is your attention. The danger with this new technology is you can become less available to your children, friends and partners in your real-life world.”

What Are Boundaries?

April 23, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media with 0 Comments

[image by The Wandering Angel]

Boundaries. It’s a topic that comes up quite a bit, and it comes up in a variety of contexts. The context I most often hear it in regards to relationships. Boundaries is a subject that I talk with many people about, and it’s a subject that we are all continually striving to understand better.

More recently I have heard the topic in the context of marital relationships, and what are healthy and unhealthy boundaries? And what is a boundary? It’s become an increasingly more popular topic as the idea of boundaries doesn’t just concern the relationships we are involved in, in the physical space, but the ones that we are involved in online as well.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be posting some entries on the topic of boundaries from a variety of different authors, talking about a variety of different contexts.

But today, I want to begin with an excerpt from perhaps one of the most well known, cited and popular books out there on this topic. Boundaries: When to Say YES, When to Say NO, To Take Control of Your Life was first published in 1992 by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. Continue Reading…

Relational Tweeting

April 22, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media with 1 Comment

For those of you that read my other writings online, you know that I love Twitter. I think it’s an absolutely amazing tool that I think has the ability to help us connect with others in some meaningful ways.

And Twitter is not just about connecting online, but it’s about connecting offline.

Twitter can be a great catalyst for enhancing present relationships, and that’s why I highly recommend that you read Simple Marriage’s blog post How Twitter May Tweak Your Relationships. They do a great job of really capturing some unique ways that Twitter can “tweak” your relationships in a great way.

Focus on what’s important.
Stay connected throughout the day.
Team parenting as a way to grow closer.
Collaborate with other parent’s/couples.

Great post, so go over and check it out, and hopefully you will check out the Simple Marriage blog more often as they post great stuff.

Taking the Stigma Out of Mental Health with the Help of Social Media

April 21, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media with 0 Comments

The other day I received an @reply from Mikey Ames on Twitter with the message,

@rhetter SM mental health, Vancouver- http://tinyurl.com/dhd2y4

When I opened up the link I read this,

Mental Health Camp – a Conference about Mental Health and Social Media

with the following synopsis,

MentalHealthCamp is a conference about the intersection of social media and mental health. What is social media? Social media is the online practice of sharing personal opinions, insight and content (of text, images, and music). Examples of social media are blogs, Facebook, YouTube, flickr, and Twitter. And mental health? For the purposes of this conference, mental health is the wide spectrum between mental wellbeing (e.g. experiencing a minimum of stress, anxiety and interpersonal problems) and serious mental illness (e.g. heroin addiction, schizophrenia or anorexia). We are also including issues such as ADD. After very positive feedback to a panel discussion about social media and the stigma of mental illness at the 2009 Northern Voice blogging conference, a spontaneous decision was made by some of the attending bloggers that this topic is something that cries out for more attention. We are asking questions such as * How can blogging help decrease the stigma of mental health? * How does someone with a mental illness navigate the waters of anonymity in the transparent world of social media? * How is the journaling that happens in blogging similar to or different from journaling for healing? * How can social media participants with mental health issues help each other?I absolutely love this concept, and my only regret is that I can’t get there on such short notice. But I have been using social media for a long time and have been trying ways to connect it in the mental health, therapy and counseling settings. If you look at my blog I am attempting to use some social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed to bridge the often isolated world of therapy, with the community of social media.

Though the field of psychology and the practice of therapy is rooted in a long and rich historical tradition, I have always tried to push against the stigma that is often associated with mental health…or with someone going to see a therapist. Maybe I see less of a stigma because I have gone and do go to therapy myself, or maybe it was living in California all those years where having a therapist is right up there with having a physical fitness trainer.

I think there are a lot of things that can be done to slowly erode away the stigma of therapy and mental health, and I think this generation is ripe to break down many of those stigmas that have kept so many people for so long from getting help. I will be interested to see what comes of this gathering, and I hope that we can put one together here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex in the coming year as well. But for now I will have to follow the work of Raul from Hummingbird 604 and Isabella from Change Therapy. And hopefully I will get a chance to connect with them via social media.

[image from publik15]

Launching My Private Practice

April 19, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media with 5 Comments

For many of you that know me, and those of you that don’t, launching my own therapy private practice has been something that I have been wanting to do for quite a while. After a lot of years of work in university life, church ministry, pastoral care and non-profit community mental health agencies I felt that the time was ripe for this transition. I’m very excited about this new phase of my life and I know that all of my experience and training comes to its highest fruition in this type of setting. I’m not only excited about the therapy aspect of my work, but I’m excited about introducing more social media and newer technologies into the communication of my practice and the things that I’m working towards in the field of Marriage and Family Therapy.

You will notice several things on this site:

First, you can connect with me on Twitter and FriendFeed, unless you already have. I will be using Twitter and FriendFeed to not only give you some insight into my personal life, but to provide you with content in the area of marriage, family, relational issues, and generally anything having to do with the area of therapy. And of course you will continue to see my occasional tweets and links about social media and leadership.

Second, you will notice that I have launched a Facebook group dedicated to the field of marriage and family therapy. This will be a site that I hope many will find helpful, both clients and non-clients as I provide resources, as well as avenues for others to connect with me and ask ask therapy, or mental health related questions. Check it out.

Third, I have provided a bookstore with some recommended reading in certain areas of life, as well as a resources page. Both are incomplete so this is where you come in handy.

Fourth, you or anyone else can ask me a therapy/mental health related question, whether you are a client or not. I hope this will be a helpful resource for those in need, or those who are just curious. Participate and help me crowdsource this site, letting me know what you would to see as a potential client in a therapy practice, or what you would want to see as an outside observer looking for resources and information. I appreciate all of your help and encouragement in this endeavor.

Innovation3 Gathering–Live Blog by Rhett Smith (Tuesday & Wednesday)

January 26, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 3 Comments

I’m very excited to be a part of the live blogging team for the Innovation3 Gathering, put on by Leadership Network, and hosted by Bent Tree Bible Fellowship.

I hope that you can join me on my blog Tuesday and Wednesday as I will live blog 4 specific sessions, and as much of the rest of the event that I can. I hope to see your input and comments throughout the day (via this blog and Twitter–please use the #i3 hashtag), and if you have any questions you would like me to pose the speakers in or out of their sessions, please let me know. You can reach me via the live blog or on Twitter @rhetter.

If you are having trouble viewing this live blog, try watching it in a pop-up window: Click Here

Not only can YOU participate, but the tweets of 11 other Twitterers will post automatically to the live blog. So stay tuned for their behind the scenes insight and thoughts: gregatkinson, cynthiaware, djchuang, scottmcclellan, decart, lancebauslaugh, camron_ware, flowerdust, innovation3, tonymorganlive and mbstockdale.